Guild Wars 2

Title says it all – which weapon setup (i dont talk about build as i just run zerker, so it’s either 30/10/10/10/10 with staff, or 30/30/0/0/10 with d/f) and why you would choose when pugging dungeons?

From my experience ,staff has following pros/cons:
+ insane aoe (meteor shower + lava font + frost bow 4 + glyph of storms ftw
+ nice group utility – swiftness / water fields etc

- boring rotation and not many defensive skills
- not sure about single target dps
- low might stacking capabilities

d/f however has much more interesting rotation, and feels fun to play.

Questions are:

1. Whats the difference in single target dps (as a %) between those weapon sets?
2. Whats the difference in dps when fighting small group (not more than 3, so air auto attack hits them all)?
3. Whats the difference in dps when fighting lots of mobs at once?

Thank You for answers

Here is a little assistant notes for you to help along. It’s not answering your differences questions. But I did some testing on the Veteran Risen Giant out in Cursed shore earlier. Few attempts at Fiery Greatsword kills, and few attempts without and use of Mistfire Wolf instead.

Average time of Fiery Greatsword kill ~20sec.
Average time of Non Fiery Greatsword kill ~20sec.

Grant it TYPICALLY FGS is a much better dps weapon, however I have lag issues. Yet I still used its abilities on cooldown. The fact of the matter is, staff has a HUGE dps pool, and it’s damage is the same to 1 target, as it is to all other 4 targets, but you get to hit them all at one time. So just picture that amount of dps done from the vet risen giant, to 5 targets total in a dungeon you run in. I personally see staff being the highest dps for the eles. But yes, rotation can get boring.

PS: These dps tests were without use of frostbow or glyph of storms or elementals. Strictly might stacking and obliterating with staff fire skills.

(Which also this was with no outside buffs, no food, no potions, no other player buffs, no sigil stacks “seeing as they drop off now from changing weapon”, and no sigils focused on killing undead. It was purely basic exotic zerk gear and 5% dmg sigil. So it would have been better if I had stacked all that too.)

Hello there

D/f has too much defensability in my honesty opinion, I wouldn’t be useing it if you’d like to stack might more frequently. Staff on the other hand is pretty good for might stacking because of the 2 fire fields available: Lava font and Burning Retreat. You can combo fast with those two skills but you firstly need to build your character on fire traitline Fire Puissance and have Arcane Brillance eqquiped.

However, staff doesn’t have a good single target DPS capability and it is more recommended for stationary foes, so dagger or scepter is more advised for the average dungeon runs.

Now answering your questions:
1 – Between staff and dagger/focus, staff is better. But fire ball will explode and hit multiple targets on a small surrounding area. Lightning chain will bounce. Dagger skills are more likely designed for groups but every weapon can damage a certain quantity of enemies in front. If you want a powerful single-targeted DPS wep you’d better go for scepter.
2 – Well there’s essencially no difference in DPS when fighting against groups, but I ain’t sure which weapon you’re talking about, staff or dagger?
3 – Well the DPS is randomly calculated and sent onto the enemy so you can’t expect the same damage to hit the same foes. And, there will be a difference in DPS if there is a difference in toughness among the enemies you’re facing. But with my experiencies I can tell you that if you’re fighting pretty same foes the difference will be slightly (or poorly) low.

Do bad pugs count? Because then you want staff.

D/F is flat out better for all hard content with semi-skilled or better players.

In my experience the DPS is comparable or surpasses Staff, especially if you use any sort of tactics that involve balling up of enemies. Lightning Whip’s cleave alone does considerable damage. And its pretty much confirmed that melee does superior damage to range.

D/F also has two fire fields, the line from Burning Speed and Firewall, and are much more intuitive to use when using your several blast finishers, three of which are on your weapon skills alone, with two more being available readily on utilities/heal, because you’re in close to the target.

D/F also tends to have more condition application, including Chill and Burning. AND has much more defensive applications, which makes it much easier to rez in the middle of a fight, which even with great players you will have to do at some point.

I usually only switch to Staff if I need to range an opponent whether out of necessity or because the PUG I’m playing with adopts that strategy. And some fights like the Volcanic or boss at the end of the Underground Facility Fractal almost require a Staff, especially due to the superior CC capabilities which definitely surpasses D/F, and the spread out nature of the encounters, such as a PUG NOT grouping up the Lava worms, or having to kite the Elemental or Powersuit.

The nice thing about either weapon for dungeons is that you can run the 30/30/0/0/10 build, and freely choose between traits that increase Staff AoE or dodge, increase conjure charges, etc.

idk why u talk little about s/d and s/f conjure as choices. As far as I am concerned, S/D might stacking lh is still the single highest damage across all classes. Second to that would be staff elementalist just in terms of supplying group with perma 9 stacks of might.